Virtual Dementia
Support Groups
Specially Designed for Families and
Caregivers on Zoom
The 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the Month
January 5 and January 19, 2021
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Joining is easy!
Call 215.321.6166 or e-mail Yardley@arden-courts.com
to register and receive the link to join the support
group. You do not need to download the Zoom application
to join the event.

Memory Care Community
If you are caring for someone with dementia,
who is caring for you?
You are not alone. This virtual informational, supportive
group will help you to learn more about the disease as well
as understand their feelings about the changes dementia has
made on their daily lives. Support groups can also help you:
• •
• •
Learn practical caregiving information
Get mutual support
Learn about your local community resources
Find solutions to challenging behaviors
arden-courts.org 13899_Yardley_Jan_5.5x11.indd 1
6 DECEMBER 24, 2020
H EADLINES
Yeshiva U. Students
Hold LGBTQ Event
N AT I O N AL
HANNAH DREYFUS | JTA
TEN YEARS AFTER an event
featuring gay students and gradu-
ates divided Yeshiva University,
students at the Modern
Orthodox school planned
another event on LGBTQ issues
— with trepidation.

Th e students who helped
plan the event set for Dec. 20
said they do not want their
names associated with the
panel out of concern that it
could have negative academic,
personal or professional conse-
quences in the Orthodox world.

One said he saw rabbis at the
school tearing down fl yers
promoting the virtual event
and fi led a federal discrimi-
nation complaint against the
school as a result.

Dr. Chaim Nissel, Yeshiva’s
vice provost for student
aff airs, said the school does
not comment on discrimina-
tion complaints because of
privacy concerns. He declined
to comment on the incident
but said “there is more work to
be done” to make the school a
“compassionate and respectful
campus” for all students.

Th e school has said it wants
to foster “an inclusive commu-
nity” but has rejected several
other eff orts by students to
organize LGBTQ events or
groups on campus. Th is time,
the student organizers secured
an offi cial faculty sponsor,
hoping for a diff erent outcome.

Th at sponsor, psychology
professor Jenny Isaacs, said the
process to gain the university’s
approval had been “arduous”
but that she had taken on the
task because she had seen the
impact of having gay students
feel supported during and aft er
the 2009 event.

“There aren’t
many moments in life when you are
asked to take on some risk in
order to do the right thing,
but this was one of them,” said
Isaacs, who has taught at YU
since 2005 and has tenure.

Zipporah Spanjer, a senior
at Stern College for women
who identifi es as queer, said she
was surprised that Isaacs had
prevailed. “Last I heard it was
going to be run unoffi cially,”
she said. “In the past, getting
any LGBTQ event approved by
the university has been like
pulling teeth.”
Th e 2009 event, colloquially
known at YU and in Orthodox
circles as “the gay panel,” was a
watershed moment for Modern
Orthodoxy’s fl agship institu-
tion. While non-Orthodox
denominations of Judaism now
embrace LGBTQ members,
Orthodoxy remains hesitant to
do so because of the Torah’s
edict against homosexuality.

So a live event featuring
four students and graduates
who identifi ed as gay was a
departure. Hundreds of people
packed into the university’s
largest auditorium for the
panel, and at least 100 more had
to be turned away, according to
news reports from the time. On
the panel, three alumni of the
university and one then-current
student described their personal
experiences of being rejected,
stigmatized and isolated within
their Orthodox communities of
origin because they were gay.

At the time, a signifi cant
donor threatened to withdraw
part of a $30 million donation
toward a new learning center
on YU’s uptown campus if
university leaders allowed the
panel to take place, according
to email exchanges from 2009
and 2010 obtained by the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Afterward, the donor
accused one of the panelists of
having “committed a horrible
chilul hashem (desecration
See LGBTQ, Page 10
12/18/20 12:03 PM
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM